Ross Alumni And Filmmaker Completes ’Blue Eyed Boy’

East Hampton - Ross School students continue to follow their passions and make strives to bring them to life. Grant Curatola, a graduate of Ross School ('07), recently completed his film, "Blue Eyed Boy." This eight-minute short features students from Ross and Pierson as well as Ross alumni and was filmed locally for his junior thesis at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

The film follows a young boy, Charlie, who attends his first day of school and develops a crush on Dana, a girl in his class. However, Dana's sweet disposition is a mere facade. Secretly, she is evil. Charlie does not heed warnings about her and trouble ensues.

Shooting on 16mm, Curatola filmed at Pierson High School, Sag Harbor Elementary School and Ross Lower School from April 30 to May 2. He cast Pierson student Theo Gray and Ross student Dillon Kab, who played the two leading roles, as well as Ross students and alumni Cameron Burton, Michael Vanegas, Michael Iacono, Adin Doyle, Bryant Yunker, Emma Engel and Kendra Tatkon-Kent. Ross teacher Kimble Humiston appeared in a cameo as The Driver. Curatola also invited a stunt coordinator from the hit TV show "Law and Order" to come in for the final scene.

A junior at Tisch, Grant wrote the screenplay when he was a sophomore. Originally, "Blue Eyed Boy" was a play on the horror film "The Omen," about a child who is the son of Satan. But after watching "Let the Right One In," a Swedish vampire film, he wanted to offer a different twist. "The movie had a dark tone but it also had a cute, fun vibe to it, and this was the kind of tone I wanted to strike," he said. His film is a play on innocence, darkness and corruption. "I introduced bullies and different elements." Curatola studied abroad in Prague last fall, and, inspired by the country's shadowy landscape, he started re-writing his script. "It gets very dark there and no one really ever smiles, so you're kind of in this Kafka-esque absurdist mode. It helped darken this child romance."

"It was a fun shoot," said Curatola, who has spent the last two summers working at Ross Summer Camp teaching filmmaking to children. "Everyone had a great time. Working with kids is a very interesting experience if you're a young filmmaker. You really go on what you know."